Then I couldn't even get it right when I looked up the figures on Google! Typical member of the British public, eh? :D

But is it reasonable to expect people to know things like this? It's frustrating that people (including myself) don't know more, of course, but then it does take a lot of time and effort to learn these things, and without much of a reward at the end of the day (apart from looking clever on an obscure internet TV channel).

Is the public ignorance of EU politics the fault of the public for not learning their facts and figures properly? Or of the institutions, for being so bloody complicated?

Institutions will always be horribly complicated - until the mainstream media hosts debates and reports better on the EU, it will be harsh to expect much knowledge from the wider public in something that's never really spoken about.

Perhaps we need a European version of "Question Time".

Also the list system that's used in most countries means that there's little need for the candidates to become personally known to their constituents. So I suppose that's an institutional aspect that's specifically to blame...

If you just count my country as NI, then I can name all of them! (If the whole of Ireland, I can name a few more, if the UK, then just add on Farage and Watson...).